


Where He Rings Hollow

by Kiiyoshi



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Cameos for Midorima and Izuki and a touch of Riko, Kiyoshi has it tough, M/M, References to Torture, and insanity, spy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiyoshi/pseuds/Kiiyoshi
Summary: Kiyoshi touches the bandage with the three remaining fingers on that hand, frowning slightly. Kuroko can tell he wants to say something, perhaps something along the lines of 'I wouldn’t mind forgetting this entire week', but they both knew he had no right to even think of such a thing.“Seven years of special ops, and you managed to take me out with a table lamp. I’m surprised you’re not due for a promotion.”“It’s complicated,” Kuroko can’t help but answer. “You really don’t remember, Kiyoshi-san?”





	Where He Rings Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> Spy AU featuring agent!Kuroko, and rogue agent!Kiyoshi. Beware of descriptions of gore, torture, and suicide ideation.

Kuroko pushes the door to the chamber open. It made no sound, not a single creak—not that it mattered when there was no one around to hear for now. 

The man seated—no, restrained—in the center of the room made no move to acknowledge the extra presence, even as Kuroko took care not to mask his footsteps. He knew what he was here for.

“Kiyoshi-san.”

The man startles then, but their eyes don’t meet when he looks up, half his face obscured by a tightly bound rag. His face was untouched, but the bloodstains did not go unnoticed—nor did his abbreviated fingers, also bound tightly with bandages tied by a doctor’s hand.

“A while since I’ve heard that name—“ he rasps, not without some ironic humor in his voice, “—I must be in trouble then.”

Kuroko refrains from asking how he could be worried about code names when he was missing _half his fingers_ and probably _more_.

“I’m here to rescue—“ Kuroko ignores the high-pitched buzzing in his ear. “I’m here to rescue you,” he tries again, not without freeing Kiyoshi from his blindfold before he begins working on the restraints. 

Kiyoshi’s eyes are soft, and so very tired. Kuroko can’t help but wonder when the last time he slept was. However, he has no qualms thinking about how cruel this entire situation is. “Those aren’t your orders,” he says, without the slightest hint of resignation.

The buzzing persists as Kuroko discards the restraints—chains and rope, perhaps handcuffs were much too simple. “I’m here to rescue you, Kiyoshi-san,” he says again, and with more conviction. He pauses when the other sways, when a newly freed hand grasps him by the front of his shirt.

“Kill me, Agent.”

Kuroko remembers this Kiyoshi doesn’t know his name. “Don’t be ridiculous, get up—“

Kiyoshi pulls him closer and forces him to look him in the eyes. A swirling brown, a gnawing abyss that eats at him, just like—

“I know there’s something wrong with me,” his voice cracks and Kuroko wants to pull away, but he doesn’t. “I feel it. _Please._ ”

 _I don’t want to kill anybody_ , Kuroko hears, and he’s horrified to find that he doesn’t know if it’s his voice, or if...

When he can finally break away, he can’t help but glance down at where Kiyoshi’s toes had been partially amputated as well. None were essential digits, but with wounds like these, it should have been obvious to him that escape was impossible, and that Kiyoshi was right.

He pulls the gun from its holster and cocks it at Kiyoshi, finger trained on the trigger. At the sight of the muzzle pointed inches from his face, brown eyes seemed much less tired as the muscles in his face smoothed over.

Kuroko does not pull the trigger, he cannot—even when he hears the voices in the background grow louder. He cannot look at the captured agent in the eye, the one who had begged him for death over and over. He cannot pull the trigger, even when this wasn’t _real—_

 

**_Simulation Over_ **

 

Kuroko’s dragged back to reality while Midorima taps his clipboard in disappointment.

“The correct answer was killing the compromised agent upon entering the room,” he says. Midorima is disappointed, but not surprised. “You _do_ realize you are still undergoing decontamination?”

 _Decontamination_ , Kuroko thinks mirthlessly as he wipes his face down with the provided towel. His hands were shaking, but Midorima was tactful enough not to point it out. “I passed the initial screening.”

“Kiyoshi Teppei held you captive for two years,” Midorima says, as if Kuroko had forgotten that dark window of time. “We’re aware of what he can do to people’s minds if he isn’t dismembering them for his own entertainment, and I can see that you’re still in one piece. It’s not a fluke he managed to persuade his own captors to serve under him for six years.”

Kuroko bites back a retort that would insult the other’s intelligence—Midorima was far from stupid, and he can’t deny that he was in the wrong for trying to spare Kiyoshi’s life in an exercise meant to prove his independence of the other’s influence.

Kiyoshi Teppei was a traitor and madman. Seven years ago, he was captured by the enemy and driven insane, or that’s how the story went.

 _I know there’s something wrong with me_. He can’t forget those words, nor the look in his eyes as Kiyoshi pleaded for death. Kuroko would like to have a word with the person who programmed the scenario, but he settles for checking out of the lab when Midorima finishes reprimanding him about sparing a target destined for a lifetime of suffering anyway.

 

\- - - -

 

“The simulation went well, I hope,” Izuki says when Kuroko lets himself in. “You know the higher ups are looking for any signs that Kiyoshi got to you.”

“He did _get_ me for two years,” Kuroko replies, recalling that Kagami always told him he was bad at making jokes. “There was a bug, Midorima-san wants to try again before submitting the results.”

The senior agent shrugs, unconcerned. “Above my pay grade, I guess. He’s doing better today,” his voice hardens when he answers Kuroko’s unasked question.

If “better” meant that Kiyoshi was no longer screaming for death, or trying to induce a concussion by smashing his head into table corners—they had learned quickly to remove all the furniture in the room, bolted or not—then Kuroko would take it.

His orders were to kill the rogue agent the moment his mission was compromised. Instead, he slipped up, ended up captured by said agent, and then defied his own orders a second time by bringing him in alive--amnesic, but alive nonetheless. “I’d like to speak with him,” Kuroko says.

“Usually I’d say no and send you straight to the psyche ward as a potential menace to us all,” Izuki replies, “but Kiyoshi was my friend too, you know. Maybe you can get something out of him.”

Kuroko didn’t appreciate the implication, but Izuki wasn’t saying no, and that was more than what he deserved in this present situation.

“As usual, leave your sidearms at the d—oh shoot, I almost forgot.”

The overall impression was that he was potentially brainwashed by madman-traitor Kiyoshi Teppei. Since he passed his screenings, Kuroko was allowed to freely roam the hallways relatively unmolested, at the cost of being unable to carry any weapons lest he shoot somebody and make off with the rogue agent into the sunset. With the wary looks from his fellow agents, Kuroko wasn’t stupid enough to believe that was enough consolation for anybody.

“I’ll leave my badge at the door,” he says in an attempt to dispel the awkwardness. “You said he’s better today, but I do not want to find out how one can strangle themselves with a detachable lanyard in two seconds flat.”

“He isn’t the only one you need to worry about,” Izuki says a little too cheerfully, “but yes, I’d appreciate that. Any pens too, please. Near maximum security you know.”

The fact that Kiyoshi was not put into _fully_ maximum security spoke volumes about what the higher ups thought about the situation in general. They are arguably the ones responsible for what had been a prized agent’s descent into insanity after all, so Kuroko expected nothing from them.

 

\- - - -

 

Making it past three layers of computerized security and armed guards, Kuroko pushes the door open to find the former—rogue?—agent seated in the center of the room. The deja vu does not go unnoticed.

Kiyoshi is calm when Kuroko takes a seat across from him—the chairs are cushioned, and the table is made of an unknown pliant material. Kuroko eyes the bandage pasted on Kiyoshi’s right temple. The injury wasn’t from Kiyoshi’s initial attempt at knocking himself out upon finding out that his former comrades were dead, and he was the one who killed them (in gruesome ways), but rather from the time Kuroko took a lamp to his head.

“Ah, you’re Kuroko,” he says, as if they had only known each other for a week. Kuroko can’t blame him—he did lose his memories a little over seven days ago.

“I’m glad you remember,” Kuroko replies. “The doctors were worried you would have trouble retaining any more memories, but I suppose it’s too soon to say for sure.”

Kiyoshi touches the bandage with the three remaining fingers on that hand, frowning slightly. Kuroko can tell he wants to say something, perhaps something along the lines of _I wouldn’t mind forgetting this entire week_ , but they both knew he had no right to even think of such a thing.

“Seven years of special ops, and you managed to take me out with a table lamp. I’m surprised you’re not due for a promotion.”

“It’s complicated,” Kuroko can’t help but answer. “You really don’t remember, Kiyoshi-san?”

“I remember taking the pill—terrible tasting stuff, by the way. Then I woke up here, seven years into the future,” he replies bitterly. It was a very even response from somebody who was stark raving mad just two days earlier.

It does not take much for Kuroko to refrain from reminding Kiyoshi that the poison he took ended up disintegrating his vocal chords and melting half his organs. The replacements his tormentors found in order to keep him alive were still warm when they cut him open. The Kiyoshi from back then had made sure to describe this in excruciating detail.

“Maybe you thought the Agency had finally come for you, and succeeded.”

The smile is more bitter than his words. “I didn’t expect to be saved, Kuroko.”

Kiyoshi was sane when he took the pill, Kuroko knew that much. He also knew what followed after, while the Agency did not—Kiyoshi made sure of that when he returned the Director’s agents in pieces and accompanied by rose bouquets and hand-lettered cards. They had assumed Kiyoshi broke from the torture, and turned his brilliance against the organization that fostered him, not without adopting some flair of sadism. Even now, that was the general consensus.

Kuroko doesn’t say anything to that, and instead opts to study the scar where Kiyoshi’s throat had been cut open lengthwise to reconstruct his vocal chords. Kiyoshi had undressed for him a few times before, and Kuroko knew there were many more scars, the most prominent one starting just below his sternum.

“The poison, the syndicate, the agency, and now you I suppose... Nobody really wants me dead, do they?”

“Well,” Kuroko starts coolly, “you did kill five of us, one of which is still missing his eyes and teeth. Perhaps you ran out of filigree boxes for those?”

It’s more than what he meant to say, but Kiyoshi has the decency not to let the pain show on his face. Kuroko immediately regrets the outburst.

“The last thing we want to do is give a traitor what he wants.” It’s not much of a consolation. “Death isn’t the answer, Kiyoshi-san.”

“They told you, huh?” His voice steadies.

It’s strange how one could still be insane when they’ve forgotten the events that made them like this. Kuroko eyes the bandage again, and he wonders.

“You asked me to kill you before, too,” Kuroko says, and it’s more than what he’s told anybody else—it’s not treasonous if nobody asks, he tells himself. “You were careless, and I stole the gun. I had it in my hands and you looked at me... you looked at me as if this was your moment to finally rest. I couldn’t do it, Kiyoshi-san.”

Another bitter smile that pulls at his chest. “Because you didn’t want to give me what I wanted.”

“I hesitated for half a second. That was too long for you and you forced me to the ground.”

The look in Kiyoshi’s eyes is something else when his hands twitch on the table top. For a split moment, Kuroko expected them to wrap around his throat.

“Tell me what I did to you, Agent.”

It’s a request that calls for a loaded answer and Kuroko does not know where to start. Kiyoshi hardly laid a hand on him, and not to harm him in the way knives or a pair of pliers would. Although... one time he came close, hands closing around his throat when Kuroko had spit on him.

“I was your captive for two years.” It’s a useless answer, somebody else must have already briefed him on this, but Kiyoshi doesn’t press him.

Spared from knives, Kuroko can tell him about those two years of solitude and psychological terror. He can tell him about the times Kiyoshi showed him his scars, and there were many. He can tell him about the time when he spared another agent sent to rescue Kuroko—his only act of mercy for anybody other than himself.

It was true that during those two years, Kiyoshi no longer sent neatly packaged pieces of the Director’s agents with tips on how to train them better either.

Kiyoshi looks away then, glances at the door almost as if he expected another guest. “I worked for years as an operative,” he says, and they both know Kuroko knows—everybody did. “You can avoid a lot of blood if you can break the mind and take what you’re looking for.”

It goes without saying that Kiyoshi settled with both blood and mind-breaking.

Kiyoshi has his eyes back on him, and they’re too unlike the ones he’s used to, and too like the ones from the simulation. “And now you’re here as a glorified prisoner because you happened to survive me. Agent, what are you expecting to gain from coming here?”

Kuroko is used to attracting suspicion. To receive it from this man was an interesting form of irony. “I was worried you had finally found a way to split your head open,” he says almost sarcastically.

“No use,” Kiyoshi folds his remaining fingers together, looking strangely pensive for a madman. “You coming here is as useless as the Agency keeping me alive. Forget the things I told you, and forget whatever image you constructed of me when you accepted the mission. Agents come and go, and I knew that. Nothing can justify revenge—“

“It wasn’t revenge,” Kuroko says without thinking. Something curls in his stomach as he realizes that as things are now, he is the only one who can guess what drove him insane in the first place when Kiyoshi himself cannot even remember. He eyes the bandage again.

Kiyoshi looks tired again. “Implying I had a good reason to butcher my own comrades?”

It’s Kuroko’s turn to look away now. Perhaps they were right—Kiyoshi was dangerous, and he had groomed him well despite Kuroko’s own best efforts to keep his head. The pleas to die, that longing gaze, gentle hands that usually demonstrated otherwise, and that act of mercy—gestures that have brought them to where they are now, where Kuroko does not want to see him die.

Death would not be retribution, but is that his only reason?

“Kuroko,” Kiyoshi sighs. He’s back to using names again. “Of course I don’t remember what it was, but rather than using what I taught you to find some sign that I was a good person, maybe you should be turning it against _me_.”

 

\- - - -

 

Kuroko shoots the prisoner in the center of the room and the mission is over, his surroundings dissolving into pixels as Midorima pulls him out. He submits the results later that day, and after one more screening, they give Kuroko his gun back.

 

He thinks of Kiyoshi, of the Director, and of the agents who lost their lives because somehow, somewhere, there must have been something there that was worth dying for.


End file.
